Pauline Lacanilao's poems have appeared in Alchemy: A Journal of Translation, The Journal of English Studies and Comparative Literature, and Kritika Kultura. She is an Assistant Professor of writing and literature at the University of the Philippines.
-ation
-egory and then that fails too -et resistance -t action to reinstate themselves -nerbell of the populace -th -rant disregard of one another -er at their guardians -sickness -y -ifiably mute -le for the smokeshow -nt hatemongers -ipulation -le with greed -ization to turn a profit -ological avoidance of truth -ion -hless optimism -k impunity -itarian -heaval -ance hostage -hdrawal from truth -enograft of anger on love -terday is dead -ith
revel
an individual fails and the system becomes all gone are those who beg the ousted take cover silence falls on the din a sweet voice says give me your ear or let’s display with pride this flag look how even the children glow feels like home this kingdom wrought from iron citizens devoted to becoming just willing to be kind opening the gates for the late forgiveness a triumph of man at last all have what all need just enough blood for each organ pursuing for oneself a path from the individual’s unending quest about who pushed the revolution into its rut while those in power continue to see with attentiveness so total the only trajectory of society is up the crowd holds vigil the law flaunts its wit the individual wears a prominent x and finally says to stasis yes the crisis reaching its zen
A Filipino in a Storm Surge
Palo, Leyte 2013
- zombied by an unmuzzled zephyr - yanked and sank - xanthic, asphyxiated - Waray ako makabaro - ventriloquizing valor - Upstairs, now! - the television, the dinner table, the toddler, taken - salt in the sideways rain - rhythmic wreckage - quaking in black water - praying a grip holds - ontology obsolete - Never before in history... - the map remade in minutes - loss - kindness in chaos against kindness claimed by it - Jesus Christ, it won’t end - if indigenous, invisible - helicopters having enough room for only foreigners - gagging on glacier melt - floodwater through the front door, dog frightened - effluvium, expansive, inescapable - dreaming of dryness for days to come - the connotation of chiaroscuro in the clouds - body as ballast on a floating bed - another and another and another, in agony, alive
MacArthur Park, Palo, Leyte
Morning light breaks onto shore, onto monument.
Made of bronze, ten feet tall.
Might must mesmerize.
Memorial for a man my brother once named a shit of mine after: You flushed but it came back.
Maybe I’d flee too if I could. Show up in two years, stage a photoshoot, fabricate bravery.
Manufacture, by rewriting history, a new status quo.
Metonymy:
Murdered our colonizers in 1521; by 1977, built them a shrine.
Marcos, dedicated dictator, understood optics, polished up the park, renamed it after his wife.
Monstrous or motivating?
Mayor of the neighboring city, the dictator’s nephew, took me in after the storm. Hot showers, electricity, a strawberry shake. Outside, others gathered their dead.
More and more I fear my own silence. How much I enjoy it.
Made love to a fellow relief worker in a crowded evacuation center without making a sound.
Months later, hosted donors. Took their picture by the statues. Heroes, someone said.
Must I minimize an empire’s violence to ensure their dollars keep pouring in?
Misjudged my position as diplomat and discovered I was tour guide all along.
Muscle memory takes years to unlearn.
Mornings I’d look at the sea MacArthur emerged from and wonder if I could turn this failure at freedom into one more bloated corpse.
Marched right into the water fully dressed once. Measured its depth with my waist, neck, nose.
Masters disguised as saviors return over and over, like waves.
Move with their tide or swim for the shore.